Summer Field of Eternal Sorrow
by Chibi Tidus
Summary: This is a story about Claire trying to keep her memory of Steve alive! Aww... they would make such a cute couple! Read if u like CS pairing!
1. Default Chapter

Summer Feild Of Endless Sorrows  
  
This was where they were supposed to meet once they escaped. Once they had gotten out of that evil Rockfort Island it had seemed that they would be safe, that was, until they discovered they were on a colision course with Anartica. Then he was taken prisoner, and turned into... that thing.  
  
She had killed him.  
  
As she looked out across the field, her eyes scanning the patches of flowers swaying lazily in the mild summer breeze. The sun was dipping down below the top ridge of the hill in the distance, basking the entire area in red and gold light. There were few trees ringing the field, just enough to provide some shade on the hotter days where someone could curl up against the bark and read. Surprisingly not too many people knew about this place, it was past several acres of open farm land. She only came here when she needed to remember.  
  
A few feet to her right, beneath the oak tree, was a plaque she had set in the ground herself. She walked the few steps over to it, sitting down on the soft grass, and ran one hand over the granite. She fingered the letters of the name, one after the other, taking her time. He would always be here for her. She had all the time in the world to be here. No one knew she was here and she liked to keep it that way. No one to know, no one to see.  
  
"It's been a year now, you know," she said carefully, laying flat on her stomach. "It doesn't get any easier, either. On the surface it may seem as though I may be getting better, able to deal with it. Leon keeps making passes at me but he doesn't understand..."  
  
The breeze picked up slightly, ruffling her shoudler length brown hair that she had down at the moment, not up in her usual ponytail. She thought he might like it like this better. She reached over to her purse and pulled out a book of poetry. She read a few poems to him, thinking of all the pain the words opened up. All the wounds never healed.   
  
She would not cry though, she would not let this kill her. Her heart did belong to him still, and so that part of her life will never be the same, but she was strong, she could move on. Love drove her, passion controlled her.  
  
After about an hour the sun had dipped below the horizon and she could not see the words of the book by the frail light of the moon. She rose, shivering from the sudden cold, but moving out into the middle of the field. This was her place, this was his place. Though he had never been here his presence was just as known here as her own and she was determined to keep it that way.  
  
Closing her eyes, she held out her hands palms up. Breathing deep the air, so crisp, so fresh, so clean. She could have fallen asleep like that. It was just so peaceful.  
  
The breeze gracefully blew around her, wrapping around her arms, her wrists, caressing the soft flesh of her neck, making her hair stand on end. Something felt strange in the night air. She pressed her eyes closed, not wanting to ruin whatever was happening by looking.  
  
Another hand slid into one of her own. Her breath caught and she felt like she could not breathe. There seemed to be another person standing beside her, she could almost feel warm breath on the side of her face. She rolled her head a little to that side, needing to know if it was true, needing to know what was happening. All she could see was the dark of the backs of her eyelids.  
  
The breeze seemed to shift around her, and she knew there was a real person there. There had to be. Nothing else would feel like this, nothing else could compare to the way her heart was pounding.   
  
The hand in hers clenched tighter as the person leaned in, his lips almost touching her ear. The voice, when it spoke, was choked with sadness, tears, and pain. She knew it, she knew she would, and she wanted to die as he spoke to her in his soft voice. He did not say much, and as soon as the words passed his lips, a gust of wind came swiftly, and he was gone. There was nothing.  
  
Her legs gave out and she fell to her knees, holding her hands up to her chest, trying to protect herself. Please, no... She thought. Don't let that be it!  
  
Her eyes flung open to look around and she saw nothing. There was only the field before her and the book's pages flapping quietly in the wind. Nothing left of him, of how he had come to be here, or where he had gone. It was as if nothing had happened in the field at all.  
  
Laying back on the ground, she pulled her sweater more tightly around her. There would be no way she could get home tonight, she knew. Too much had happened to her, too many things running through her mind, and she decided she would just sleep here. Not beneath the shelter of the tree, but that of the stars. The moon was a beautiful cresent above her, and she looked up at it, wondering how something so beautiful could be so unattainable, and fell asleep.  
  
As she dreamt, his words flowed in and out of the dreams. "Claire, I love you. I know, you wont let go of me, but I'm fine here. I know what I am doing and I know we will meet again."  
  
The next morning the sunlight greeted another corpse in the summer field of enternal sorrows. 


	2. Part 2

Summer Field Of Eternal Sorrow  
  
A/N: Wow! Apparently the first chapter of this story was very well accepted, so I guess I shall just make another chap. This will not evolve more than this chapter, I don't think. This is just to tie up some loose ends that may or may not have been apparent in the first chapter. I will try to stay true to the original purpose, which is to depress, so don't think I've gone soft.  
  
She lay sleeping, rolled onto one side, her hands placed beneath her head as a substitute pillow. She breathed deeply, the rythym of deep slumber not wanting to stir. Her brown hair, her youthful face, looked so prefect to him as he stood over her, watching her. The moment she started to rouse from the sleep, however, he backed up, fading into the shadows.  
  
Chestnut eyes opened slowly. When they did not see the green grass and rising sun as expected, she bolted upright, looking at her surroundings. Wherever she was it was black, and a thin fog hovered above the ground, moving and pulsing with the movements of the wind and her body. Alarm took over her body and she reached for her purse, where she kept her sidearm, only to discover that there was nothing there. This can't be real, she thought, trying to figure out where she was.  
  
All around her was darkness, so she could not really say if she was anywhere. The whole place gave off a strange, mysterious vibe, and one she hoped to be rid of shortly. Rising to her feet, she went to brush off the dirt that should have been on her clothes, but found none. What was going on?  
  
There was a single footstep behind her. She froze in place, much like she had the night before, only this time her eyes were wide open. Whatever was here she wanted to know, she wanted to see it, to know it. She wanted out of this place, for it stirred in here an eerie feeling of finality that she was not prepared to feel just yet.   
  
Too scared to turn around and frozen in place, she wanted only to know what had happened to her. She had fallen asleep on the grass, in the green field, and now she was here. That could not be right! Logic told her one thing, but her mind functioned more on instinct than logic after all the horrors she had seen in her relatively short lifetime. Nothing here could win a place as the most horrifying thing she had ever witnesses, which was a image of the first zombie she had seen, in a bar in the town of Raccoon City.  
  
One hand clasped on her shoulder, fingers digging slightly into her arms as if to not let her get away. She wanted to run but knew deep down that she should not. She had to stay, to let this thing take its course, but something about it just seemed wrong and she wanted out.  
  
"Claire..." the voice whispered, as if not sure how to advance.  
  
Her eyes watering, she did not yet turn. "Steve?"  
  
The hand lifted itself from her shoulder and she lunged forward as he wrapped both arms around her in a huge embrace, making her nearly trip over her own feet. Her arms were pinned at her side or else she would return the embrace, and her legs nearly gave out as she felt his lips on her skin. His slender form had her in thrall, and if this was some sort of strange dream she never wanted this to end. Never!  
  
"Oh God, how I've missed you!" he yelled, turning her around and she saw him for the first time since that encounter on the airplane going to the Antartic. His shaggy reddish brown hair fell over voloptuos green eyes. He was wearing the same clothes he had since that last day he had been alive, and she just wanted to take them and rip them off, but something told her that was not going to happen.  
  
"Steve, I have missed you so much!"   
  
"I heard all your poems," he said, pulling her close to him and she leaned her head against his chest. "They were so wonderful."  
  
She clutched him, suddenly scared. "Steve?" she asked with a quiver in her voice, making her seem extremely fragile, a delicate flower once again in the arms of who she belonged to.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
She took a long breath and asked the question she was not sure she wanted an answer to, "Where are we?"  
  
His arms fell from her body and he took one step back. "We're safe, now. We can finally be together."  
  
"That can't be! I... I..." the words would not come from her mouth. She could not find the words to say how she had killed him and watched him die, after that virus had taken hold in his body. It was by far not the easiest thing she had done. But this, like everything else, she could overcome. Trying to keep the fear out of her voice, trying to rise her shoulders to make her seem braver, all failed miserably. This was a lose-lose situation she had become trapped in.  
  
He put one hand under her chin, lifting it to meet his eyes. "Claire," he started, love in his voice and eyes. "Nothing could ever have stopped us from being together."  
  
"But where are we?"  
  
Frowning, he released his hold on her and turned his back to her. "Somewhere were time can no longer touch us, in a place where no one will come between us." He turned back around and attempted a smile that looked very out of place on his somber face.   
  
"I don't like it here."  
  
"No one does, I don't think. But we have to be here, at least for now."  
  
"Am I... dead?"  
  
He closed his eyes, turning his back to her again and sinking to his knees. He laid his hands flat on the ground, his palms dissappearing below the swirling fog. His head hung low and he tried to keep his voice steady as he said, "Am I?"  
  
Her eyes widened in shock and she raised one hand to her mouth. "It was you, then..."  
  
"Last night?"  
  
"Yes, that was you I felt in the field. The field that I so wanted you to-" she cut herself off. That field would now be there forever, maybe untouched by human hands for a couple weeks, months, years. Who knew what could happento the things she once loved about it if she was not there to protect it?   
  
"Do you want to go there?"  
  
The question caught her completely off-guard. Of all the thing she had been waiting for him to say that was the last thing on the list. How could they go back to a place where they were not even real? But he had been there, and yet he had only been there one night. Too many questions came and went through her head and she wanted all of them to go away. "Yes, I want to go there. Can we stay there?" she found herself asking, not sure if that was really what she wanted.  
  
"Whatever you want," he said, standing and moving to her, taking her hand in his.  
  
Her lower lip shook. "Can we always be together?"  
  
Eyes sad, he replied, "That is not up to us."  
  
Her head fell on his shoulder, now too heavy for her to support on her own. "God," she whispered in a quiet voice. "There are so many things I don't understand."  
  
When she lifted her head off his shoulder they were back at the field. The endless black void was gone, and she saw the golden rays of the setting sun over the hill. Had it been that long?   
  
"Time is frozen here."  
  
The orange and gold tint that settled over the field seemed vastly appropriate. She vaguely wondered if Chris or Leon would come looking for her, or if they would ever find this place. She wondered if she would see them when they got here, when they found...  
  
Her body.  
  
Falling back onto the grass she let the tears flow. Steve laid down on the spot next to her, wrapped one arm protectively around her and nuzzling his face into the space between her shoulders. He was so happy she was finally back with him, and he was looking forward to eternity with her.  
  
Hopefully this would have a happier ending. 


End file.
